California Farming - our beloved Caterpillar & Memories

Wow, and to think I thought only my old man farmed with a Cub. We did not like any of ours (had worn out 3 of them here). Gutless little wonders, but we used them to cultivate the "Winter Melons" for the wholesale markets. There was a time when (of several)my brother and dad got into a beef;my brother told me absolutely DO NOT operate the Cub, and make sure dad had to cultivate and furrow a particular field himself. The story goes that my brother was lazy and took too long to take care of this block, so he let the old man have at it. What took 3 days I believe, took pops more like a week and a half. He never argued with us after that one.

Pony motors here would arouse many of the neighbors at our mom's original farm. I would fire one up, then look along the fence line to usually see 2-3 heads poking over to catch a sneak peek LOL. These were all retired farmers, they KNEW what that sound was! Funnier when each of them would hop in their vehicles and "casually" cruise back and forth to watch me disking or whatever I was doing. A couple would finally stop to gawk, while the nicer one of the three would run down to the store and bring everyone a cold drink. That's what I called COOL! Naturally, I would offer seat time to them, and reluctantly, one by one they would make a few laps. I laughed at them as I could see grins from their faces; of course they denied liking any of it, as they claimed they put in decades of sweat driving those "things" LOL.

Tad, you mention all of those machines. Back in the day, a person could actually make a decent living off of a small farm with a minimal amount of equipment. Those days are long gone. Thanks for the memories. JM

May not be Caterpillar, but remember, Cats were the machines in the orchards, doing the tillage and ground prep for harvest.

About 60 or so years ago, a neighbor came to our house, 2AM! Woke the family, needed me to come help him get the "wind machine" running. I was a fair mechanic already, growing up on the farm taught lots of lessons. Almonds freeze easily when they are in the very young nut stage and it was about 28 degrees F. Sad part- We had run the Ford Engines (265 cid V8?) the previous afternoon with no issues. These machines had two engines, pulling two bladed props, one engine also controlled the rotation of the machine. As luck would have it, the engine providing the rotation was the dead one. Climbing the 34 foot tower, flashlight and tool box in hand, fuel at carburetor, so checked for fire, plug wire bit me real hard! Nice bright blue spark! Controls are at the base of the tower, the owner was operating them as I tried to run through the possible issues. He hit the start button again the engine fired and backfired, quit. After checking the point gap with feeler gauge, assured they were indeed opening and closing with test light, finally gave up, cold, frustrated and worried about the crop. Daylight came and another fellow came with some test gear, after some time, he too failed to get it running. On a whim, they changed the points and condenser. Would you believe the condenser was the problem! After that episode, we had an extra coil, condenser and set of points! I have never forgotten that lesson. - cts